A just published book edited by ICCA Consortium steering committee member and treasurer Stan Stevens finds appropriate ICCA recognition and respect to be critical to conservation and rights.

The University of Arizona Press has released Stan Stevens’ edited book, Indigenous Peoples, National Parks and Protected Areas: a New Paradigm Linking Conservation, Culture, and Rights. Stevens’ opening and closing chapters discuss how the new paradigm affirms the importance of recognizing Indigenous peoples’ rights, responsibilities, and conservation contributions; the incorporation of the new paradigm in IUCN policy and the decisions of the Parties to the CBD; implementation initiatives and challenges; and experience with protected area governance by and with Indigenous peoples. The book highlights ICCAs and protected areas with shared governance as key means for realizing rights-based conservation and implementing the new paradigm. A set of nine case study chapters provide in-depth analysis of protected areas in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia, including Stevens’ chapter on ICCAs in Nepal’s high Himalayan national parks and a chapter on the Ashaninka Communal Reserve, Peru by Emily Caruso, Regional Programmes Director for the Global Diversity Foundation, an ICCA Consortium member organization.

“A vast number of national parks and protected areas throughout the world have been established in the customary territories of Indigenous peoples. In many cases these conservation areas have displaced Indigenous peoples, undermining their cultures, livelihoods, and self-governance, while squandering opportunities to benefit from their knowledge, values, and practices. This book makes the case for a paradigm shift in conservation from exclusionary, uninhabited national parks and wilderness areas to new kinds of protected areas that recognize Indigenous peoples’ conservation contributions and rights. It documents the beginnings of such a paradigm shift and issues a clarion call for transforming conservation in ways that could enhance the effectiveness of protected areas and benefit Indigenous peoples in and near tens of thousands of protected areas worldwide.

Indigenous Peoples, National Parks, and Protected Areas integrates wide-ranging, multidisciplinary intellectual perspectives with detailed analyses of new kinds of protected areas in diverse parts of the world. Eleven geographers and anthropologists contribute nine substantive fieldwork-based case studies. Their contributions offer insights into experience with new conservation approaches in an array of countries, including Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa, and the United States.

This book breaks new ground with its in-depth exploration of changes in conservation policies and practices—and their profound ramifications for Indigenous peoples, protected areas, and social reconciliation.”

“Stevens brings together a wealth of original research and new thinking, including a wide spread of case studies from the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The book insightfully explores the legal, political, and social challenges that need to be overcome. “